Radd al-ʿajz ʿalā al-ṣadr makes the close of a passage echo an earlier expression through a verbal relationship. In prose, the comparison is between a unit’s opening and end. In poetry, the end of hemistich two is linked to one of four earlier positions.
The four verbal relations are repetition, jinās, derivation and quasi-derivation. They yield sixteen theoretical poetic cases, of which the source illustrates thirteen and leaves three without separate examples.
Sound, morphology, placement and intended meaning must all be examined. The next topic is sajʿ, the phonetic correspondence of prose endings.